Reunited Haiti family carries on 2 yrs after quake

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, left, and her sister Soraya embrace their mother Manette Ricot at their home in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus said he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
— AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, left, and her sister Soraya embrace their mother Manette Ricot at their home in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus said he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
/ AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Soraya Laurentus sits as her father Lelly Laurentus, right, talks to a member of the SOS Children's Village organization, left, in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Soraya, 5, and her sister Leila, 6, were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)— AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Soraya Laurentus sits as her father Lelly Laurentus, right, talks to a member of the SOS Children's Village organization, left, in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Soraya, 5, and her sister Leila, 6, were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
/ AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, 6, runs past discarded electrical appliances in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Leila and her sister Soraya, 5, were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)— AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, 6, runs past discarded electrical appliances in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Leila and her sister Soraya, 5, were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
/ AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, 6, sits on the lap of her grandfather Marcelis Laurentus as her sister Soraya, 5, walks by at their home in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)— AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Leila Laurentus, 6, sits on the lap of her grandfather Marcelis Laurentus as her sister Soraya, 5, walks by at their home in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
/ AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Soraya, 5, right, and her sister Leila Laurentus, 6, center, play with a friend in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)— AP

In this photo taken on Jan. 17, 2012, Soraya, 5, right, and her sister Leila Laurentus, 6, center, play with a friend in Calebasse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The sisters were among 33 children who U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and were reunited with their parents in March 2010. Their father Lelly Laurentus says he let them go with the missionaries because they promised his daughters shelter and schooling in the Dominican Republic. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
/ AP

CALEBASSE, Haiti 
The American missionaries arrived in a beige bus in the days after the earthquake, promising a better life for the children of this village in the mountains above Haiti's capital.

The Idaho-based Baptist volunteers said they wanted to rescue the boys and girls they believed were orphaned by the Jan. 12, 2010, quake. But their effort to spirit away 33 children to the neighboring Dominican Republic failed when they were stopped by police and then jailed on kidnapping charges. It later came out that all the children had parents.

Two years on, residents of Calebasse describe a tempered sense of hope for their returned children even as they struggle against hardship. A humanitarian group has provided the families modest aid, and UNICEF has helped the children by building new schools.

"We still have problems but the children are able to eat and go to school," said Lelly Laurentus, 29, a computer repairman who's been unable to find work except as an occasional cab driver.

Laurentus, whose two daughters boarded the beige bus late that morning in January 2010, thought he was sending them to a better life.

A U.S. missionary accompanied by a Haitian translator had circulated among the homes of Calebasse, offering to bus children across the border following the quake, which officials said killed 314,000 people and left more than a million homeless. In the Dominican Republic, the children would find shelter and a school, the missionary promised.

Laurentus couldn't resist the offer. His home had just collapsed in the earthquake and he was forced to sleep outside. Many Haitians of humble origins believe in lougarou, mythical werewolves that prey on children, and Laurentus is among them. He was terrified that in the dark, the shape-shifting beasts would fly from the mountaintops and attack his children as they slept.

"We had to confront the devils of night," Laurentus said, standing outside his concrete house Tuesday as he waited for his daughters to walk home from school.

Everybody wanted a seat on the bus, a ready-made escape from the desperation that followed the quake, he said.

"If all the kids didn't leave, it was because there wasn't enough room on the bus," said Laurentus.

Nevertheless, Laurentus felt ashamed for sending away his daughters, Leila, now 6, and Soraya, 5. A man should be able to support his family, yet he was powerless in the aftermath of the quake.

But the children never made it to the Dominican Republic. Police took them into custody and handed them over to SOS Children's Villages International, a global group that aims to keep families together by providing support.

The Haitian government and foreign relief groups reunited the children with their natural-born parents in March 2010, a month after the "orphan rescue" grabbed international headlines amid an outpouring of legitimate efforts to help quake survivors.

The 33 were among more than 2,770 children returned to their families after the quake. At the time, UNICEF and other groups feared that child traffickers were taking advantage of the chaos and smuggling children out of the country.